The origin of the five-star red flag 400 words

From July 14 to August 15, 1949, on the eve of the founding of the People's Republic of China, "People's Daily", "Liberation Daily", "Xinhua Daily" and other major domestic newspapers published solicitations for the Preparatory Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference

Flag pattern notice.

One month later, the preparatory committee collected 3,012 applications from all over the country, Hong Kong, Macao and overseas.

When the meeting was held in September, 38 flags were approved, and 8 (?) flag styles were finally finalized as alternative flags.

The most popular design at the time was Draft One.

The design features a red background with yellow stars and a yellow stripe representing the Yellow River.

The red background and yellow star are the necessary basic elements for soliciting design drafts for the new national flag. The yellow star represents the Communist Party or the Chinese people.

However, some people believe that China is not just a big river, the Yellow River, so they derived two other drafts. The second draft has two yellow bars representing the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, and the third draft has three yellow bars representing the Yellow River, Yangtze River, and Pearl River.

However, Zhang Zhizhong told Mao Zedong that the yellow strips dividing the red land were like the country being divided, and that another work should be selected.

Next I selected the five-star red flag.

The five-star red flag was designed by Shanghai citizen Zeng Liansong. The original design was as shown in Draft 4. The idea mainly showed that China's four main social classes, the working class, the peasant class, the petty bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie, unite under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.

On the other hand, it also metaphorically means that the Han nationality is the center and the other four ethnic groups, Manchu, Mongolian, Hui and Tibetan, are unified within China.

However, because the five stars were arranged from top to bottom, which seemed to imply class status, the design was changed to surround the big star, and the sickle and hammer logo was added to the big star. Later Mao Zedong deleted the sickle and hammer logo.

Because considering that four small stars have been used to represent the equality of workers, farmers, scholars, and businessmen, if the symbols of workers and farmers are added, it seems to become unequal again.

The flag was finalized.